A short-form series on historical and contemporary color wheels, and why they were built. Each episode discusses what problem a color wheel (or wheels) tried to solve, who made it, and what it gets right or wrong. We end up covering a lot of color theory ground in the process! New episodes every Wednesday.
Curated by: Color Nerd (24 videos)
In this video, I break down Dutch color theorist Frans Gerritsen's perception-based color wheel from his 1975 book, Theory and Practice of Color. His wheel is built directly on how the human eye actually detects light, and includes a set of interactive acetate overlays. Unlike the traditional RYB "artist's wheel," Gerritsen's system is grounded in trichromatic vision — the three types of cone cells in your retina — and organizes color around six "full colors": red, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and magenta. Not exactly groundbreaking in 1975, but very well-presented. Plus it pre-dates computer colorspaces, which later made RGB/CMY color order systems more familiar. This is episode 19 of "Color Wheel Wednesday." Thanks for watching! #colortheory #colorwheel #art